This invention relates generally to artificial hands and, more particularly, to an artificial dexterous hand that can function substantially like a human left hand, a human right hand, or a hand formed by effectively integrating certain digits of the human left and right hands.
A variety of artificial hands are known and have widespread applications in many diverse fields, such as prosthetics, space or undersea exploration and the like. Industrial applications for artificial hands also abound. The existence of these and other applications has created an increasing need for artificial hands to reliably perform many complex or delicate tasks, particularly in certain work environments that are innately unsuitable for task completion with the aid of an artificial hand. This need has in turn given rise to an accompanying need for artificial hands which are capable of assuming more configurations and more versatilely adapting to various work environments.
Existing artificial hands have, however, tended to lack the broad range of hand configurations often required for reliable and effective grasping and manipulation of multiple types of objects. A number of artificial hands have also lacked the versatility needed to perform complex tasks without undue delay or have only been capable of functioning effectively in a rather limited number of work environments. They have also tended to be unable to perform tasks that may require the artificial hand to change from a more robust grasping or manipulation mode to a more delicate grasping or manipulation mode and vice versa.
One approach toward meeting the aforementioned needs has been to fashion more anthropomorphic artificial hands. To that end, artificial hands have been constructed which have an assemblage of mechanical linkages that ostensibly correspond to the four fingers and thumb associated with a normal human hand. These hands also attempt to emulate some of the movement characteristics of the human thumb and fingers. This approach tends to make the artificial hand somewhat more capable of performing certain tasks, since various objects are inherently suitable for grasping and manipulation by a human hand. A number of common industrial tools or household goods are, for example, designed to be compatible with a human hand.
Artificial hands of this nature tend, however, to lack the diverse movement characteristics associated with a human thumb and fingers. They also do not tend to have the necessary functional characteristics that would permit them to alternate versatilely between robust and delicate grasping or manipulation modes. They further tend to be unable to accommodate various objects which are not inherently compatible with a human hand. Finally, artificial hands of this nature have inherent functional limitations that may well impair their usefulness in certain work environments.
Another approach toward meeting the aforementioned needs has been to fashion a rather non-anthropomorphic artificial hand. To that end, artificial hands have been constructed which have an assemblage of mechanical linkages which bear a rather distant resemblance to human fingers and which do not emulate the particular positional orientation of human fingers relative to each other. Various other nonanthropomorphic assemblages also exist for artificial hands. While artificial hands of this nature tend to better manipulate objects having configurations that are ill-adapted for manipulation by a human hand, they too have disadvantages. They tend to be unable to accommodate objects that are inherently suitable for grasping and manipulation by human hands and to accommodate only a very limited number of hand configurations. They also tend to be rather cumbersome to operate in various work environments and to require a rather complex and expensive assemblage of actuation devices and control devices.
It should, therefore, be appreciated that there has existed a definite need for an artificial dexterous hand which is better capable of grasping and manipulating a wide variety of objects and of reliably and versatilely performing many complex or delicate tasks in many different work environments.